​American journalist Doualy Xaykaothao and Ukrainian producer Valeria Fokina have reported in Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. 

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As the two women traveled across the country, at times with a driver and security personnel, the roads were lined with heavily guarded checkpoints and entering major cities required passwords only Ukrainians could pronounce. The team traveled from the west to the east, from the Carpathian Mountains to the Black Sea, recording interviews between air raid alarms, on trains and farms, inside bomb shelters and at cemeteries. They witnessed heart-crushing moments: family loss, starving animals, destroyed neighborhoods. But they were also uplifted by collective resistance, kindness, unexpected moments of raw humanity and by a people determined to survive. 

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Europe’s second-largest country, once home to some 42 million people (whose numbers have dwindled due to the war, high emigration and low birth rates), remains under martial law and is at the center of one of the world’s most violent conflicts. As of spring 2026, Russia’s full-scale war had killed at least 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers, according the country's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Civilian casualties are estimated to be even higher. Russian losses are believed to be five to six times greater. Millions of Ukrainians have been driven from their home as the war stretches on. 

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Ukrainians told us they had aged years in a matter of weeks or months. Many people live as if each day might be their last, embracing each other and using time more selfishly. But when attacks are reported, many are at the ready, prepared to help clear debris, reopen shops and return restaurants and bars to their boisterous being. Concerts are organized to fundraise for a war-related cause. People run to work and then, often, to a funeral. The pain of war numbs, but lives slowly rebuild. Birthdays are celebrated, weddings are planned, babies are born. Bit by bit, pieces of normalcy return, and Ukrainians carry on.

 

You Can't Take The Sky, an original podcast series, brings listeners into the lives of everyday heroes across Ukraine.